Controversial ‘Masculine’ Meetup in Dupont Purportedly Cancelled
New post: ANNOUNCEMENT: The Meetup On February 6 Is Cancelled https://t.co/QyXpL9pVlM
— Roosh (@rooshv) February 4, 2016
(Updated at 3:17 p.m.) The controversial meetup that threatened to fill Dupont Circle with followers of a men’s rights blog is cancelled, says the blog’s founder.
Daryush Valizadeh, who also goes by the name Roosh V and runs the notorious “masculinity” blog Return of Kings, appeared to call off the event in a post he wrote last night:
I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meetups can not be made private in time. While I can’t stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return Of Kings meetups. The listing page has been scrubbed of all locations. I apologize to all the supporters who are let down by my decision.
Attendees were originally instructed to gather outside the Starbucks at 1501 Connecticut Ave. NW Saturday from 8 to 8:20 p.m. as part of the blog’s “International Tribal Meetup Day,” a meeting that was intended to “allow masculine men to regularly bond and converse with each other while providing support in the case conflict or disturbances affect their city or nation.”
Despite the cancellation, at least one planned protest is set to go on with or without the appearance of Return of Kings supporters, said Matt Kirkland, one of the protest’s organizers.
“[The Return of Kings meetup] is probably not cancelled,” Kirkland said. “As I said earlier, they had started to make more secure contingency plans. We will still be holding our [protest].”
A nearby sit-in organized by Collective Action for Safe Spaces, a group that aims to stop street harassment and assault, will also move forward as planned.
Though the meetup has likely been cancelled, MPD sent the following e-mail to the Second District listserv at 3:10 p.m. this afternoon:
We have received your emails and heard your concerns about the meeting this Saturday evening in Dupont Circle with the writer Roosh V. We understand your concerns about events of this nature in your community.
We are aware of the upcoming event. Events like these take place all the time in the District of Columbia and the MPD prepares for all of them.
These groups have the same First Amendment rights as any other citizen or organization in our country.
We understand that there may be counter protests to this event and we have prepared for that as well. The MPD are there to ensure peaceful and lawful events. Any persons breaking the law will not be tolerated.
A lot of times controversial organizations plan public events just to provoke a response from the community. Please let the MPD handle the situation and remember there are many ways to express yourself in a peaceful manner.
Let’s continue to work together, we are making great progress!
